Abstract
Treasure revelation, or the practice of ‘discovering’ concealed scriptures and artefacts by visionary Buddhist figures, played an important role in the revitalisation of Tibetan Buddhism in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the eastern Tibetan region of Golok Serta served as a lively centre of treasure revealing activity.
An immensely influential leader in this milieu was Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok, the charismatic founder of Larung Gar (or the ‘Larung Five Sciences Buddhist Academy) in Serta County, Sichuan Province. Not only did Larung Gar rapidly grow to become the PRC’s largest centre of traditional Tibetan Buddhist learning and practice, by the 1990s it was also home to a significant community of resident Han Chinese monastic and lay practitioners.
Following Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok’s death in 2004, Larung Gar has remained a leading force in the spread of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese audiences. Not only is it cherished as a ’spiritual home’ by its resident Sinophone community, but also by many tens of thousands of lay Buddhists across Han China and beyond.
In this talk, I argue the enduring impact of the ‘Larung School’ – my shorthand for the Larung institutional-lineage nexus – in the PRC-based Sinophone Tibetan Buddhist scene rests importantly on its exceptional inclusiveness of, and accessibility and legibility to, ethnic Chinese constituencies. In this connection, I explore Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok’s revelation of a Vajrasattva ‘treasure’ sadhana for the benefit of Chinese audiences in the 1990s as a technology of inclusion that has significantly contributed to the flourishing of the Larung Sino-Tibetan mandala.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken between 2012-14, I describe how the revealed sadhana spawned the Vajrasattva Dharma Assembly, a multi-day liturgical event that serves as Larung Gar's annual, officially designated ‘Chinese Dharma assembly.’ Attracting many thousands of Chinese lay attendees each year, the Vajrasattva Assembly plays a central role in Larung Gar’s vibrant pilgrimage culture by providing a charged occasion for Han Chinese followers en masse to forge and consolidate a sense of physical and embodied connection to the Larung School.
Grounded in the ethnographic present, this talk highlights the social life of a powerful act of Tibetan treasure revelation and its ongoing reverberations on the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in contemporary China.
